Trump’s Lawless Actions: Hard to Tell Which is Worst

Bill Press, Tribune Content Agency on Feb 6, 2025

You can’t say he didn’t warn us. In three weeks, Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to our democratic institutions, trying to deliver on every wild campaign promise he made.

The scope of his lawless actions even stunned some of his supporters. Oh, he won’t pardon all January criminals, they assured us, just those who’d not engaged in violence. Wrong! Oh, he won’t round up all undocumented persons, just those with a criminal record. Wrong! Oh, he’s not going to eliminate the Department of Education, just reform it. Wrong again!

Trump and his unelected co-president, Elon Musk, are determined to tear it all down and, so far, there seems no way to stop them. Clearly, cowardly Senate Republicans won’t do it. Neither will puppy dog Speaker Mike Johnson. Nor Trump’s rubber stamp Supreme Court, which has already practically given him total immunity.

In just three weeks, there have been so many mind-blowing executive actions – all of them ignoring the role of Congress, expanding the powers of an imperial presidency and violating or undermining existing law – it’s hard to decide which is worst. Here are a few of the more outrageous examples. You decide.

January 6. In one fell swoop, Trump pardoned all those charged with following his orders and storming the U.S. Capitol, including some 200 guilty of assaulting police officers.

Justice Department. On Trump orders, the acting attorney general fired dozens of career DOJ prosecutors, merely for working with Special Counsel Jack Smith in his case against the former president for his role in the insurrection.

FBI. The deputy acting attorney general fired eight senior officials for assisting Smith and warned that anyone else in the bureau who worked with Smith could also be fired. A president sends an armed mob to attack the Congress. You help investigate him for it? You’re fired! For doing your job!

Treasury Department. Last weekend, Elon Musk sent his thugs into the Treasury Department to seize all records of the government’s centralized payment system, including highly sensitive private information on every federal employee.

Birthright Citizenship. Defying the U.S. Constitution, Trump declared that birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment, no longer exists. Why? Because he says so.

Inspectors General. Ignoring the legal requirement that he give Congress 30 days notice and a detailed report before doing so, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, some of whom he’d appointed himself.

CIA. As part of his plan to gut the entire federal government – with no consideration for the expertise lost or who would replace them – Trump asked 2.3 million civilian federal employees and every agent of the CIA to consider resigning by Sept. 30. With the promise of a “buy-out” he has no authority to deliver.

Gaza. Then, of course, styling himself after Alexander the Great, there’s Trump’s plan for seizing Greenland, Panama and Gaza and making Canada the 51st state. You can’t make this stuff up!

But for me, the worst Musk/Trump outrage is dismantling the US Agency for International Development, or USAID. All worldwide USAID missions have been shut down. And all USAID workers have been ordered home by this weekend.

What a disaster. USAID was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, in the middle of the Cold War, to provide a humane presence, not a military presence, for the United States throughout the world. Since then, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, it has saved millions of lives, providing food, health care, housing and security for the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world. USAID is credited with preventing a 2014 Ebola outbreak in Guinea and, through George W. Bush’s anti-AIDS PEPFAR program, saving 26 million lives so far. Until last weekend, it was engaged in fighting malaria in Uganda. So many lives saved, at so low a cost: less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

But now, suddenly, all of that goodwill built up over 60 years is gone. No doubt, as a result, millions will suffer and die of disease. Because Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, decided to wage war on the poorest people on the planet. He called it a “criminal organization” and, with Trump’s full support, shut it down.

Nothing could be more short-sighted, more heartless or counter to centuries of civilized behavior, as spelled out in Matthew 25/40: “Today, I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Trump should have read it, and shown it to Elon Musk, before killing USAID.

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(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)